2022: My year in books

Once again (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), I logged my book reading for all of 2022. Here's the list, followed by some reflection. Re-reads are indicated by an asterisk*.

1. Year of the Monkey — Patti Smith (2019) - 01.04
2. The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Radical Change — C. J. Polychroniou & Noam Chomsky (2021) - 01.05
3. White Evangelical Racism: the Politics of Morality in America —Athea Butler (2021) - 01.07
4. Rhet Ops: Rhetoric and Information Warfare — Jim Ridolfo & William Hart-Davidson (E) (2019) - 01.17
5. Critical Discourse Analysis: A Literature Review — Jennifer Tabernero-Diamante (2016) - 01.20
6. Selves, Bodies and the Grammar of Social Worlds — Jodie Clark (2016) - 01.25
7. 4 3 2 1 — Paul Auster (2017) - 02.24
8. The Faraway Nearby — Rebecca Solnit (2013) - 02.24
9. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson — (2020) - 02.25*
10. Beowulf — Seamus Heaney (2000) - 03.04
11. Bird by Bird — Anne Lamotte (1994) - 03.05
12. Shuggie Bain — Douglas Stuart (2020) - 03.23
13. Dinosaurs Rediscovered: the Scientific Revolution in Paleontology — Michael J. Benton (2019) - 04.08
14. The Border Crossed Us: the Case for Opening the US-Mexico Border — Justin Akers Chacón (2021) - 04.09
15. The Sellout — Paul Beatty (2015) - 04.14
16. Multilingual Contributions to Writing Research: Toward an Equal Academic Exchange — Natalia Ávila Reyes (Ed.) (2021) - 04.19
17. Community is the Way: Engaged Writing and Designing for Transformative Change — Aimée Knight (2022) - 04.25
18. Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland — Lady Augusta Gregory (1904) - 04.26
19. The Three-Body Problem — Cixin Liu (A), Ken Liu (T) (2006) - 04.30
20. The Future of our Schools: Teachers Unions and Social Justice — Lois Weiner (2012) - 05.01
21. Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe — Michael Löwy (2011) - 05.10
22. Queerly Centered: LGBTQA Writing Center Directors Navigate the Workplace — Travis Webster (2021) - 05.15
23. The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext — José Olivarez, Willie Perdomo, Felicia Chavez (E) (2020) - 05.24
24. The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany — Graeme Gibson (2021, 2005) - 06.04
25. A Long Petal of the Sea — Isabel Allende (2019) - 06.04
26. Vesper Flights — Helen Macdonald (2020) - 06.05
27. Prisons of Poverty — Loïc Wacquant (2009, 1999) - 06.14
28. This Is Not Propaganda — Peter Pomerantsev (2019) - 06.20
29. Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm — Dan Charnas (2022) - 06.26
30. Fossils: A Story of the Rocks and Their Record of Prehistoric Life — Harvey C. Markman (1954) - 07.16
31. The Devil and the Dark Water — Stuart Turton (2020) - 07.21
32. Research Methods for Digital Discourse Analysis — Camilla Vásquez (Ed) (2022) - 07.22
33. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil — John Berendt (1994) - 07.24*
34. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study — Fred Moten & Stefano Harney (2014) - 08.04
35. The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia 1880-1939 — John Carey (2012) - 08.07
36. Try This: Research Methods for Writers Research, Pedagogy, Writing — Jennifer Clary-Lemon, Derek Mueller, & Kate Pantelides (2022) - 08.27
37. Geek Love — Katherine Dunn (1983) - 08.28*
38. Where the Devil Don't Stay: Traveling the South with the Drive-By Truckers — Stephen Deusner (2021) - 08.31
39. Monsieur Pain — Roberto Bolaño (1999) - 09.03
40. Corpus Approaches to Discourse: A Critical Review — Charlotte Taylor & Anna Marchi (E) (2018) - 09.06
41. We, the Drowned — Carsten Jensen (2006) - 09.07
42. Book of the Dead — E. A. Wallis Budge (1920) - 09.08
43. Ways of Seeing — John Berger (1972) - 09.11
44. Graveyard Shift (Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc. Book 1) — Angela Roquet (2014) - 09.17
45. Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a Campus Culture War — Isaac A. Kamola & Ralph Wilson (2021) - 10.02
46. Lincoln in the Bardo — George Saunders (2017) - 10.13
47. Underland: A Deep Time Journey — Robert MacFarlane (2019) - 10.18
48. The Neoliberal Crisis — Johnathan Rutherford & Sally Davison (E) (2012) - 10.26
49. Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion — Jia Tolentino (2019) - 11.06
50. Mind Lit in Neon — R. J. Lambert (2022) - 11.20
51. The Lathe of Heaven — Ursula K. Le Guin (1971) - 11.30
52. Doctor Socrates: Footballer, Philosopher, Legend — Andrew Downie (2017) - 12.18
53. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures — Merlin Sheldrake (2020) - 12.19
54. Winter Street — Elin Hilderbrand (2014) - 12.20

Notes:

The publication date for The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson is 2020, but that obviously isn't indicative of when the poems were written. The most famous (and famously reclusive) resident of Amherst, Massachusetts, lived and wrote during the middle of the 19th Century. Each poem in the collection is conveniently numbered, and I will inconveniently indicate the ones that stuck out to me as I read: 28, 51, 76, 84, 128, 131, 135, 145, 148, 173, 175, 185, 214, 254, 255, 328, 465, 520, 698, 699, 712, 718, 809, 810, 822, 866, 893, 917, 919, 943, 980, 1104, 1272, 1303, 1308, 1395, 1422, 1479, 1512, 1545, 1627, 1681, 1736.

As anyone reading this has likely come to expect, I read strategically and contextually. Each year, that means themed readings around St. Patrick's Day (Gods and Fighting Men), Halloween/Día de los Muertos/Autumn (Book of the Dead, Graveyard Shift, Lincoln in the Bardo, Underland), and this year, the FIFA Men's World Cup (Doctor Socrates).

Sometimes, I plan to read something based on where I expect to be reading, such as Where the Devil Don't Stay during breaks from driving through Alabama and other parts of the South. I listened to Welcome 2 Club XIII, the latest album by the Drive-By Truckers, while actually driving.

I spent one long summer afternoon reading The Devil and the Dark Water—a creepy murder mystery, possibly supernatural, set on a 17th century Dutch merchant ship—sipping a Flyaway New English IPA from Shovel Town Brewery (North Easton, Massachusetts). This was my view:

My favorite reads of the year include: Beatty's style in The Sellout is relentless; a less careful, more pretentious, writer would have made mincemeat out of all those clichés, puns, slang, and references. Macdonald has for some time been one of those "I'll read whatever they write" authors, and Vesper Flights shows how a familiar theme can manifest across shorter modes. Entangled Life—paired with Bjork's mushroom-influenced-but-not-in-that-way-album, Fossora—was less about fungi than about how humans perceive the interconnectedness of things (I was hoping for a little more on those other definitions of "entanglement," though).

Some other observations, by the numbers:

At least nine of my completed books are ones that I have or am likely to incorporate into my teaching and research: White Evangelical Racism, Rhet Ops, Bird by Bird, Queerly Centered, Fossils, The Bedside Book of Birds, The Undercommons, Try This, and Free Speech and Koch Money.

Five books were read as part of various "book clubs", a term employed here to mean a combination of accountability group and an excuse to regularly gather together to share a chat and coffee/beer.

Four were written by folks I know (or have met). Two of these, Mind Lit in Neon and Queerly Centered, represent projects I followed throughout development, so it was rewarding to see them in print.

None of the books I read are regrets, although a couple or three were less engaging than their reputations led me to select them.